Currently, surveillance systems are used in various applications, such as anti-crime measures, crime prevention measures, disaster measures, etc. A camera in a surveillance system may be installed at either an indoor or outdoor location and may be mounted inside a building, such as within station premises or within a store, etc., or on an outdoor gate or a portion of an outer wall.
Also, a surveillance system generally includes a camera that takes an image, a monitor that displays the taken image, and a notifying means that notifies, by means of an alarm or signal, that there is an emergency situation to a surveilling person when a suspicious person, etc., is detected.
There is also present a surveillance system that can be used without a surveilling person having to constantly check the image on a monitor. The surveillance system has an arrangement that makes a notification by an alarm, etc., only when a suspicious person is detected and can lighten the burden of the surveilling person and also reduce the manpower required for surveillance.
However, as a problem of the surveillance system having the arrangement to detect a suspicious person and notifying by an alarm, actuation of the alarm upon erroneous recognition of the subject to be detected can be cited. That is, even a guard or other person who is not desired to be detected is detected and the alarm is sounded. If actuation of the alarm occurs frequently, there arises the need for the surveilling person to check the image or the site each time. This is a burden to the surveilling person and the surveillance system cannot be said to be good in usability.
Given these circumstances, there is present a surveillance system, with which specific persons among the objects appearing in an image are eliminated from subjects of detection so that just a suspicious person is detected more readily. For example, a surveillance system has been proposed as described in Patent Document 1.
Here, a surveillance system 100, such as shown in FIG. 6, is described in Patent Document 1. The surveillance system 100 includes a surveillance controller 101, a surveillance camera 102, and a reporting exclusion signal outputting device 103 provided to a subject who is not to be detected. The reporting exclusion signal outputting device 103 performs flickering of a light source 104 in accordance with a reporting exclusion pattern and the surveillance controller 101 certifies a moving object with the light emission of the light source 104 as a person excluded from reporting.